HAVING CONQUERED KUALA LUMPUR, BEST DENKI HAS ESTABLISHED ITS BEACHHEAD IN PENANG, IN PREPERATION FOR THE MASSED INVASION. This might have been the thought in Best Denki Malaysia managing director Kazuhiro Kazuki's mind, as he cut the ribbon at the launch of its first store at Gurney Plaza, Penang earlier this month (June 2008).
With a second outlet due to open in November this year at Times Square, Best Denki is well on its way to achieving its aim of having "five or six stores" in Penang. Best Denki (Kabushiki Gaisha Besuto Denki) is of course a Japanese electronics retailer with outlets across Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In Malaysia the kabushiki gaisha would be best categorized as a middle sized chain, as Clarence Y K Ngui wrote on his analysis of the Malaysian electronic retailers scene. (In the same category is included Onking and Octon Sdn Bhd, while Ngui considers HSL and Senheng as the big boys of the league.)

Whatever the scale of Best Denki in Malaysia, it sure is fashionable. Do a random surf of the Malaysian blogosphere, and you will find Best Denki namedropped all over the place. Leon's Blog writes (July 20 2008): "Oh ya, when i was at Bukit Batok Westmall, at Best Denki, i saw the Bravia tv still on sales
I thinking when will i be able to get that
But first must change the arrangement of my room, and clear a space so that i can mount it on the wall." Perfectly Unperfect blogs on the very same day: "After dinner, we headed to Vivo and usual routine will be entering the Best Denki store.
Dad is searching for a new LCD tveee with full HD. Everything was on sale and he cant make up his mind. So me and mom let him be and we headed to the camera section.
My hands got the itch of buying the Canon 450D since i wont be getting the boyfriend yet.
But to think again, photography aint my real passion. i wont be using it for career wise so wouldnt that be a waste of money?

"After Best Denki, we sat down at Coffee Bean to get ourselves some dessert. We had a whole lots of family talk. A hearty oneee! Dad was full of nonsense! haha!.."

On the subject of choice, there is too much of it, according to one recent visitor to Best Denki in Malaysia. Youth Foundation writes: "Sometimes we are spoilt with too many choices till we freeze and donft know what to do. It took me quite awhile to decide the type of LCD 43 inch television to buy from the Best Denki. There are all sorts of competing brands from Korea such as Samsung, LG to Japanese such as Panasonic, Hitachi, Toshiba and etc. The pricing among these brands are very competitive and to be quite frank I felt kind of regret after I bought Philip LCD TV..."

Meantime, jyi wrote: "On the contrary, Aeon Bukit Tinggi is now opened. If I sound modest, that's because I am. It wasn't as big as I would have ever expected. I'd take 1 Utama anyday, anytime, anywhere to it. This new shopping mall has only one camera shop... Read that: ONE. Well, at least they even have the Canon EOS 5D there. It poisoned me well. Stuff are fairly expensive to what I can get tho. 1 Utama boasts about 2132901 more camera stores than it. Serious. Lets see: 2 Shong Lees, Photo Shangri-La, Best Denki, and the list goes on and on. Okay, pics. I quite like the design of Aeon Bukit Tinggi tho..."

Jeremy Horwitz, Editor-in-Chief of iLounge published in 2005: "A report on the presence of iPods in Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur could conclude in a single paragraph: unlike Tokyo, Japan and Singapore, the subjects of our last two reports, iPods are quite nearly invisible in this city of 1.5 million people. The most likely reason: surprisingly high prices in a country that, while rapidly modernizing, is still far below the economic levels of its most prosperous neighbors..." Horwitz visited stores and shops across the city, looking for iPod's -- "Creative Labs and Sony have a very significant presence in all of the places we've visited - a list that includes Asia's largest shopping centre, the Mid-Valley Megamall, numerous malls and shops around Kuala Lumpur's Golden Triangle, including Berjaya Times Square, Imbi Plaza, Low Yat Plaza, Suria KLCC and Sungei Wang Plaza, Chinatown, and elsewhere in the city." iPods on the other hand are hard to find (or at least were hard to find -- this story was written way back in 2005 lah!): "In many major stores we've seen, the iPod isn't available at all, but CD players and inexpensive competing MP3 players are. There aren't any Apple Stores here, and they're nowhere near as common a fixture at smaller vendors as they were in, say, Singapore. In fact, smaller vendors have very little to do with the iPod here. This isn't to say that the iPod is entirely missing in action in Kuala Lumpur - if you want one, you can go a little out of your way to find them locally (such as by looking online for approved retailers), though availability at even these stores is somewhat of a question mark. At major electronics stores such as Best Denki (above), current and discontinued iPods were being advertised, yet were limited in availability - one store was 'sold out' of 5G iPods, but had color-screened 4Gs, while the other was out of shuffles and 4GB nanos, but had 5G iPods and older iPod minis in two colors..."

1 Sengkang Square: #03-26
Compass Point
Singapore, 545078.
Wrote Keeyit: Eating out at shopping malls really make me headache sometimes. Why I said so ? I often said this Aiyo, what to eat le.. every where also crowded with people..
"Keeyit: T.G.I Friday lo
Sean: Ok la.. We go back to Ikano for steamboat
Keone: I wish to try the Bavarian restaurant.
Seong: ...
Sean: I do not like to eat pasta or spaghetti. There is a Vegetarian restaurant, let's have a look. Seong Sakae Sushi lo. But crowded le.
Keeyit: What to eat, aiyo.
Keone: Ok, I will eat anything, you all choose la.
Sean: Ok, same to me as well.
Keeyit: Fine, let's eat Thai Ekspress!
Sean: Great, let's eat Kenny Rogers!
Keeyit, Keone and Seong: ...
While we were having our dinner at Kenny Rogers, I saw Charm restaurant is just opposite us then I said: "Ok, next time we will go to Charm!" I even suggested that every time we will suggest a next-stop restaurant for our next shopping events. Hehe.. good ideas right?..."
Good ideas, right? -- Charms is a Thai restaurant inside Kuala Lumpur's open air mall, The Curve. This is the kind of place you might find Thai tourists, getting their comfort food, in the midst of a Malaysian shopping day.

The sausages are decent but they were a bit cold and so was the mashed potato. The Sausage Sandwich with Bavarian Mustard (RM16.80) really came looking like a sandwich with the sausage placed in between two pieces of toast bread.

BEST DENKI -- KUWAIT

BEST DENKI BECAME THE FIRST JAPANESE ELECTRONICS RETAILER TO ENTER THE ARABIAN GULF MARKETS IN 2008.
OMG, it was so jam-packed with families and the kids were playing around at the show room. We immediately head off to the market hall to get our to-buy things and went to the Curve to get a peace of mind.
"It was nearly 7 and Char Siew Bao suggested Marche for dinner. I donft really feel like having western food cus I believe that I had enough potatoes, broccolis, pastas and rocket leaves back in aussie. But anyway, I decided to give Marche a try as I was attracted by its ebuffet-likef concept.
"This is my Marche passport. You will be given a passport at the entrance of the restaurant and remember not to lost it! Or else you will receive a RM200 penalty, which will then be donated to a charity of your choice. Haha.. sounds interesting...

BEST DENKI -- VOUCHERS

ONLINE FORUMS SUCH AS SG CLUB ARE A GOOD PLACE TO BUY, SELL OR TRADE BEST DENKI VOUCHERS. Twitter is another good place. If you are in Indonesia, UrbanEsia will exchange UR points for Best Denki promos that you publicize. You wouldn't necessarily have to be in Indonesia to collect this information... you need only follow a Twitter feed! Those points can be transformed into benefits at other businesses and establishments in Indonesia. Go to a Best Denki and take a presentable picture of the premise and UR will give you another 100 points. Write a review and you could get 200 points.

Some of the attractions of this exhibit include big Burmese pythons, a 26-foot long.

t h e + o t h e r + a q u a r i u m

WITH ALL OF THIS HYPE, YOU WOULD THINK THAT AQUARIA KLCC WAS THE FIRST AQUARIUM EVER OPENED IN MALAYSIA. But of course that is not true, there is another aquarium in the KL area, coupled with the city zoo. Located 13 kilometers north^east of Kuala Lumpur, the National Zoo and Aquarium contains hundreds of different species of animals, birds, and reptiles. The aquarium has an extensive collection of marine and freshwater species. Both the Zoo and Aquarium are open daily from 9am to 6pm. Admission: RM5 (Adult), RM2 (Child).

HOW TO GET TO AQUARIA KLCC: Aquaria's main entrance is at Jalan Pinang opposite UOA Building. The west entrance is through the underpass tunnel connecting from the concourse level of Suria KLCC (next to Tower Records) to the KL Convention Centre.
There is also another west entrance via the KLCC Park leading to the KL Convention. Centre.

Admission Fees

Category

Promotion

Fee

Adult

Standard

RM 38

Adult

With MyKad

RM 28

Children

Standard

RM 26

Children

With MyKid

RM 22

Terms & Conditions

Free entrance for children below 3 years old
Children fee applicable for those aged 3 – 12 years
Standard rates apply to those without MyKad/MyKid
Last ticket sales & admission at 9.00 pm